Bill Clinton Speaks 25 Years after the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

FAITH DANIELS, anchor:

It was 25 years ago today that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. He was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, on this day back in 1968. Dr. King was in Memphis to help striking sanitation workers, and he spoke to them the night before he died. Jamie Gangel talked with President Clinton about his memories of Martin Luther King.

President BILL CLINTON: You know, the next morning, in my house on Potomac Avenue in Washington, and you know, I was just in shock. I remember then it wasn’t very long before the city burned, and President Johnson had to call out the guard, and a lot of us agreed to do what we could to help. There were a lot of people who were burned out of their homes, and I remember I got a big red cross and put it on my old Buick convertible and drove supplies down into the burned out parts of the city for a couple of days. I was just, like many Americans, I was grief stricken.

Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.: I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

President CLINTON: August 28th, that was the day that Martin Luther King spoke, gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and I remember sitting alone in my living room in Arkansas, and I still remember, I was in a white reclining chair, listening to him and weeping, I just cried all the way through the speech, and I was all by myself. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

Dr. KING: Free at last, free at last thank God almighty we are free at last.

JAMIE GANGEL: It’s 1993, you have to give Dr. King a progress report on what’s happened. What do you say to him?

President CLINTON: I would say, well, there’s some good news, and some not so good news. I would say, you can really be proud of the life you lived and the work you did, because there is a huge black middle class today in America. We’d also have to say that the economic stresses in the urban areas have gotten worse, not better.

Dr. KING: The goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America.

President CLINTON: I think there are still people in this country who are racially prejudiced. No question about it. Some of them are in positions of influence or power, and some of them can cause great harm. But I think there are more people in this country by far who have friends of opposite races today than there were in 1968.

GANGEL: If there was one thing you could ask people to do to commemorate this anniversary, to perhaps take a step forward toward fulfilling Dr. King’s dream, what would that one thing be?

President CLINTON: For white America, it would be to re-dedicate ourselves to Dr. King’s idea that we don’t have a person to waste. For black America, it would be to remember that what Dr. King wanted was a fair chance for people to help themselves.

Bill Clinton Speaks 25 Years after the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

FAITH DANIELS, anchor:

It was 25 years ago today that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. He was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, on this day back in 1968. Dr. King was in Memphis to help striking sanitation workers, and he spoke to them the night before he died. Jamie Gangel talked with President Clinton about his memories of Martin Luther King.

President BILL CLINTON: You know, the next morning, in my house on Potomac Avenue in Washington, and you know, I was just in shock. I remember then it wasn’t very long before the city burned, and President Johnson had to call out the guard, and a lot of us agreed to do what we could to help. There were a lot of people who were burned out of their homes, and I remember I got a big red cross and put it on my old Buick convertible and drove supplies down into the burned out parts of the city for a couple of days. I was just, like many Americans, I was grief stricken.

Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.: I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

President CLINTON: August 28th, that was the day that Martin Luther King spoke, gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and I remember sitting alone in my living room in Arkansas, and I still remember, I was in a white reclining chair, listening to him and weeping, I just cried all the way through the speech, and I was all by myself. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

Dr. KING: Free at last, free at last thank God almighty we are free at last.

JAMIE GANGEL: It’s 1993, you have to give Dr. King a progress report on what’s happened. What do you say to him?

President CLINTON: I would say, well, there’s some good news, and some not so good news. I would say, you can really be proud of the life you lived and the work you did, because there is a huge black middle class today in America. We’d also have to say that the economic stresses in the urban areas have gotten worse, not better.

Dr. KING: The goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America.

President CLINTON: I think there are still people in this country who are racially prejudiced. No question about it. Some of them are in positions of influence or power, and some of them can cause great harm. But I think there are more people in this country by far who have friends of opposite races today than there were in 1968.

GANGEL: If there was one thing you could ask people to do to commemorate this anniversary, to perhaps take a step forward toward fulfilling Dr. King’s dream, what would that one thing be?

President CLINTON: For white America, it would be to re-dedicate ourselves to Dr. King’s idea that we don’t have a person to waste. For black America, it would be to remember that what Dr. King wanted was a fair chance for people to help themselves.

Choose Your Product

For NBC Learn in Learning
Management Systems please log in to your institution's Learning
Management System web site and click "Browse NBC Learn".
For further assistance, please contact our NBC Learn
Support Team and we'll be happy to assist you.

close

Choose Your Product

If you have received a new user registration code from your
institution, click your product below and use the "Register now" link
to sign up for a personal account.

Sign up for Newsletter

If you are trying to view the videos from inside a school or
university, your IT admin may need to enable streaming on your
network. Please see the Internet Filtering section of our Technical
Requirements page.

DVDs AND OTHER COPIES

Videos on this page are not available on DVD at this time due to
licensing restrictions on the footage.

DOWNLOADING VIDEOS

Subscribers to NBC Learn may download videos and play them back
without an internet connection. Please click
here to find out more about subscribing or to sign up for a FREE
trial (download not included in free trial).

The Science of the Olympic Winter Games videos are only
available to visitors inside the United States due to licensing
restrictions on the Olympics footage used in the videos.

FILTERING

If you are trying to view the videos from inside a school or
university, your IT admin may need to enable streaming on your
network. Please see the Internet Filtering section of our Technical
Requirements page.

DVDs AND OTHER COPIES

The Science of the Olympic Winter Games is not available on DVD
at this time due to licensing restrictions on on Olympic footage.

DOWNLOADING VIDEOS

Subscribers to NBC Learn may download videos and play them back
without an internet connection. Please click
here to find out more about subscribing or to sign up for a FREE
trial (download not included in free trial).